David Jeffers: scholarship progress in 2014
Automatic audio transcript; may contain errors.

[0:00] And then the education, well, but the house you're talking about, that's our shining white of success, you know.

[0:09] It's more than that.

[0:10] Yeah, well, it's getting there, but that's the one that they're going to the university.

[0:16] And it's such a paradigm to me in my mind because one of them is becoming a nurse, an RN.

[0:23] So she's gone to the big city to go into the university to become an RN, you know.

[0:28] And so she works with the latest greatest technology. She's in a boarding house, you know, it's it's electricity. It's internet

[0:36] It's you know everything that everyone would have you know in Western society

[0:40] And then when she comes here to meet us or come home, you know on our vacations and stuff

[0:47] She goes into a shock that has no running water. No electricity is literally falling into the sea the roof leaks

[0:54] You know, I mean most of us wouldn't use it as a tool shed back home because it's such bad shape

[0:59] You know what the family is there, so it's just and in that family I believe the success is so good because

[1:09] They grasp the fact that this is their only way out of this poverty

[1:13] You know is through their kids. It started as relationship based and I guess now in the last year or two

[1:22] we have expanded it to anyone can can apply for this you know and we'll look

[1:29] at them and as long as they follow the rules and the stipulations we have and

[1:36] how's it different than everyone else is I haven't a clue you know we we do it

[1:42] as nobody gets paid here for doing this and everyone that comes here pays their

[1:47] way and then they work their tails off. You know, it's not a way of making money.

[1:53] People are doing it from their hearts, you know, and I think that's the biggest

[1:58] thing. I like to keep things as simple as possible, you know, not interested in a

[2:06] lot of paperwork or overhead or things like that. We took on our first

[2:12] overhead ten years. We now have our first overhead and that's a hundred

[2:16] dollars a month for the people who actually have to drive around the island

[2:19] and distribute the funds each month you know so we had to pay that because we

[2:24] no longer live here yeah but I think that's pretty good you know for ten

[2:29] years and now this is our first overhead yeah I honestly don't know what

[2:39] everyone else does and I don't mean to be arrogant I guess I am I'm just running

[2:46] with a ball that's I've been passed so how do you expand the system that anyway

[2:53] that requires handling the cash because it's not like you're gonna connect to the internet

[2:58] well yeah I mean it works I mean it started out it you know I mean Joellen

[3:04] came to me she says wow there's some really smart kids we need to keep in

[3:06] school ten years ago and it was like three to five hundred dollars for that

[3:10] year you know and that was doable you know and then a few years later you

[3:15] It was like $2,000 or $3,000, and well, that was doable, and this year it was $17,000.

[3:24] And that actually became doable too.

[3:26] I mean, it just amazes me, and there has been no big, giant grant.

[3:30] I mean, it would be fun, but what it really comes through is individuals, $100 here, $200

[3:37] there, people who just want to kind of support these kids and buy into the education of

[3:44] you know, and it's actually pretty moving, you know,

[3:48] when you have so many people involved.

[3:51] A little more complicated, I'm sure.

[3:53] There's a lot more work for us, but every year it happens.

[3:57] It's truly a miracle that it happens.

[3:59] Every single year the funds are met,

[4:01] and we've never had to say no to a kid

[4:05] because there's no money.

[4:06] We've said no because they haven't met up,

[4:09] kept up their end of the bargain

[4:12] because we're pretty strict about that.

[4:14] We're very strict about that actually because we're actually dealing with so many other people's money, you know

[4:19] We have an accountability to do